The view from the top

(July 1) - President Clinton's senior adviser was especially
moved by the Israeli-Palestinian signing ceremony he helped arrange.
After all, Rahm Emanuel comes from an Israeli household.

Rahm Emanuel, US President Bill Clinton's senior adviser and one
of the most powerful people in the administration, is fretting as we
begin our conversation.

Not over another story on his Israeli origins. Rather, he is
concerned with perceptions that he is getting more media attention
than his colleagues.

"Nothing good can come of it," he complains, as we settle in his
White House office for an interview that took five months to get. We
go back and forth until he finally says, "Let's go, we're wasting
time."

Was Emanuel looking to build empathy and with it a softer story?
Or does this guy genuinely want to avoid making waves?

It's hard to imagine the latter. This is someone who at age 20
already "was one of the most hard-charging people I've met in my
life," according to former Democratic National Committee chairman
David Wilhelm.

"Someone would contribute $500. He'd call back and say, 'Thank you
very much - we need $1,000,'" Wilhelm recalls, of his colleague on
David Robinson's unsuccessful 1980 congressional campaign against
incumbent Paul Findlay in Springfield, Illinois. "Some people can do
it, some can't. But he did it with such energy, passion, fervor,
commitment, he probably got it nine times out of 10."

Emanuel's legendary fund-raising chutzpah later proved important
to Richard Daley's two victorious Chicago mayoral races and to the
1992 Clinton presidential campaign. He is renowned for unashamedly
hitting up donors for sums far exceeding the $500-$1,000 range.

Fund-raising now seems ancient history. For Emanuel, 37, it is
good riddance. He excelled at it, but used it as a stepping-stone to
bigger things.

Emanuel says his attitude was, "'I don't want to do fund-raising;
nobody else will do it; I'll do it.' What has always interested me is
politics. See, I love politics. I don't think it's a bad word, I
don't think it's a dirty word. I think it's an honorable profession.
The political arena is a place where you can do good things - simple
like that....

"I didn't have this job in mind, but something like this job -
working in the White House, working for a Democrat - has always been
a professional aspiration."

Emanuel's father Benjamin, a doctor, emigrated from Israel to the
US with his American-born wife Marsha in the late 1950s, and Emanuel
grew up in a Chicago suburb. Emanuel is not loath to discuss his
connection to Israel; he warmly recalls his visits and has positive
things to say about his Israeli roots.

But he draws the line at going beyond the personal to discussing
the peace process and the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate. Emanuel says
he is encouraged by US envoy Dennis Ross's efforts, but offers little
else.

"You're not going to get me to comment on current events. ...We're
committed to the process that was set up, which is to see through the
Oslo agreements and further develop the peace process."

EMANUEL IS jumpy. During the 20-minute interview, he shifts around
in his chair; steps over to a pile of magazines and flips through
Rolling Stone and Roll Call; stands beside his desk and fiddles with
his beeper; glides over to chit-chat with his secretary; hugs a
female visitor; keeps one eye on the small television carrying a CNN
report of a chemical factory explosion in Clinton's native Arkansas;
takes a few phone calls, and tells an assistant to check up on the
juvenile crime bill coming up for a House vote.

"You can see I feel like I'm going to the dentist while I'm
sitting here talking," he says.

And this is with the president away in Latin America for the
week.

Emanuel stays behind because he thinks he can get more work done -
not that those in the Clinton delegation aren't being productive, he
quickly adds. And he hates to travel. Emanuel has accompanied Clinton
on just five trips in more than four years. Two were to Israel: for
the Arava signing of the peace treaty with Jordan and for prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin's funeral.

The Middle East, and foreign affairs generally, do not consume a
large chunk of his time. But when Emanuel has had an effect on
matters relating to the region, it's been a big one. He helped
orchestrate the September 13, 1993, signing of the Declaration of
Principles and arranged the presidential delegation to Rabin's
funeral.

"Without a doubt," says Emanuel, when asked whether the South Lawn
ceremony held personal meaning to him because of his family's roots.
Emanuel, who plotted out everything from the schedule to the
choreography to the speeches on that September day, ranks it among
the highlights of his tenure with the administration.

During arrangements for both the signing and the funeral, Emanuel
worked closely with then-ambassador to the US Itamar Rabinovich.
Rabinovich often looked to Emanuel and other White House officials
for insight into matters like the budget and welfare policies that
are seemingly unrelated to the Middle East. The two became friends,
occasionally dining and going to movies together.

There is "not always a distinction between domestic and foreign
affairs," Rabinovich says, explaining that he relied on Emanuel's
perspective to understand the "political considerations that foreign
policy decisions would have," such as the Jordanian debt-relief
episode that dragged on from 1994 into 1995, after Republicans took
over Congress.

What has perhaps gained Emanuel the greatest admiration in
Jerusalem was his coming to the country during the Gulf War to
volunteer at a supply base near Kiryat Shmona. He did menial work at
the base, separating tank brakes from jeep brakes from truck
brakes.

He downplays the trip, saying it was not a sacrifice, merely
"something I wanted to do."

Wilhelm and Peter Giangreco, another former colleague, saw it
otherwise. Along with Emanuel, they were heavily involved in Daley's
1991 mayoral run.When Emanuel left for Israel in the midst of the
campaign, they fully understood his motivation.

"Rahmi doesn't just, in the old cliche, talk the talk," says
Giangreco. "Here's a guy who, during a very, very, very important
campaign to him and the city, said there's something bigger here. He
takes loyalty and duty, and his beliefs, very seriously."

THE EMANUEL home in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette was a place
that one could imagine would produce a political junkie and
policymaker. Marsha Emanuel was involved in the civil rights
movement, as well as in local politics, working for the House
campaigns of Abner Mikva and Sidney Yates.

"The kids all knew that. They went to meetings with me," she says
of Rahm and her other sons, Ariel, a co-owner of a Los Angeles talent
agency, and Ezekiel, an oncologist. "You work for people you believe
in. You get involved in issues you believe in. That was the message
the children got: You fulfill your ideals."

"At my house, you had to be ready for dinner conversations, in the
sense of having read the paper, being up on the news, etc. - current
events," Rahm says. "I've always said the [CNN] show
Crossfire was based on our dinner table." Israel was often a topic of
discussion, especially when the Middle East was in the news.

The young Rahm also vacationed regularly in Israel with his
family. And his savta, Benjamin's mother, lived with the Emanuels for
seven years.

Then there was Benjamin's brother Manuel - "Uncle Manny" - about
whom Rahm knows "very little." He was killed in Israel in 1938, and
in his memory Rahm's grandfather changed the family name from
Auerbach to Emanuel.

"Obviously, all that intensity could have [had] a negative
impact," Rahm Emanuel says of the trips and the discussions and the
history. "It had a positive one."

EMANUEL INHERITED the key adviser's position when George
Stephanopolous left at the end of the first Clinton administration.
It was a promotion that by all accounts he deserved, but it also
illustrated how far he had rebounded after being booted out as
political director soon after Clinton assumed office in 1993.

At the time, he was made special projects coordinator - a post
created especially for him, and in which he made his mark. Emanuel
was the key administration official involved in pushing through such
Clinton policy goals as the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), the assault weapons ban, the Brady handgun bill, the crime
bill, and immigration and welfare reform.

Those who have dealt with him in various work settings say that
while Emanuel is tough and sometimes insufferably brash, few are more
driven.

"I've seen a change in the last three years in Rahm. No doubt he
doesn't shy from letting his opinions be known and at times has been
a little rough in the way he treats people," says Secretary of
Commerce William Daley, who worked with Emanuel on his brother
Richard Daley's mayoral races as well as on the NAFTA campaign.

"He's more confident in his White House position. There's a little
more listening. Rahm is a hard-working person and thinks everyone
else should be. Sometimes people take it the wrong way."

Emanuel is devoted to Clinton. He says he dove into Clinton's
initiatives because of his firm identification with the president's
course of action.

"Listen, I would not work in another person's administration," he
says. "You don't work these many hours just to come to work. You work
because you, I, believe that what President Clinton's trying to do is
significant. I have to have that kind of emotional energy to get me
through every day.

"I put in pretty extensive hours, and you're not gonna do it just
for the win-loss record. You're gonna do it because you believe in
what you're doing. President Clinton - he calls the shots. But in the
broad architecture of his policy, I have a fundamental commitment to
his vision. And unless you have that, I can't imagine doing what you
do here. You need that psychic energy to get through day after day,
seven days a week, 12-hour days, six years of it. And I think he's
making a tremendous difference in this country."

Wilhelm tells of having Emanuel come up to Harvard University as a
guest lecturer for a course he taught last year. Emanuel provoked a
debate when he said he doesn't believe in moral victories, only in
victory victories.

"It captures who he is," says Wilhelm. "You want to have Rahm in
the foxhole next to you, and not against you."

Giangreco recalls Richard Phelan's 1990 campaign for Cook County
(Illinois) board president. Phelan was running out of money and the
strategists had to weigh cutting back on spending for television
advertisements versus continuing the promotions and expending the
budget too soon.

"Rahm said the right answer was to stay on the air but to borrow
money, because it would be stupid to not keep running ads. In other
words, Choice C," says Giangreco.

"Clearly, Rahm's decision to put it all on the line speaks as to
who Rahm is - very aggressive. He understands that when you have an
advantage, you never stop working; when you're down, you never let
up."

Emanuel and his wife Amy Rule belong to a Conservative
congregation in Virginia and have a two-month-old son. Despite his
intense responsibilities, Emanuel finds time to take ballet lessons
twice a week. He is a serious dancer who once considered performing
professionally.

"He has a passion for public policy and politics. "He's very
passionate about everything he does [including] ballet," says
Giangreco. "He does nothing half-speed."